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It's a backhanded credit to the University of Calgary, I suppose, that the CBC's recent exposé of the heavy hand of corporate influence on the academic tiller of the institution's School of Business was such a shocker.

Give Premier Jim Prentice his due, by floating his balloon about a sales tax in Canada's only remaining sales-tax-free zone he really has Albertans sitting up and taking notice.

He's obviously taken former Alberta finance minister and PC leadership candidate Ted Morton's advice to heart that "this fiscal crisis is too good to waste."

If the gong show that erupted yesterday over the Alberta Progressive Conservative government's bungled effort to pander to its troglodytic social conservative faction by roadblocking LGBTQ students' rights illustrates anything, it is that Premier Jim Prentice is not the political superman we imagined, before whom all must bow.

It also shows that the famed dictum "a week is a long time in politics" is profoundly true here in Alberta, just as it is the United Kingdom where Labour prime minister Harold Wilson is said to have coined it in the 1970s.

CALGARY

Could Ric McIver actually win the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership race?

Or, to put that another way, could Jim Prentice lose?

Maybe that seems like a theme for a political science fiction story to you. After all, Mr. Prentice -- the former banker, corporate lobbyist and federal cabinet minister -- is the choice of the PC establishment.

What's more, he's now backed by 49 of 59 PC Members of the Legislative Assembly. All the political oddsmakers say he’s a sure bet to win. He acts like a guy who's on a holiday cruise to victory.